Learn From Pizza

by
• May 16, 2012

This article is by Steve Krupnik a friend, client and marketer that I have the highest respect for. This article is reprinted with his permission. Steve is a consultant to Pawn Brokers across the country and his weekly E-news had this interesting spin on Internet marketing versus the Yellow Pages.

This morning I had a telephone consultation scheduled with a pawnbroker client of mine and the conversation was anything but dull. This guy is really a pistol and just loves to market and advertise in his pawnshops. He states that's the reason he became a client of mine in the first place. No such thing as too many marketing and advertising ideas.

He has successfully implemented a number of marketing systems he learned in his program and has since taken his marketing to levels even beyond. So I want to share with you a couple of things we discussed this morning because I believe you will benefit from the attitude and enjoyment this pawnbroker client of mine experiences in his business. It's infectious.

He states one of the first things he learned from being a client of mine was that his reliance on the local Yellow Pages was far too heavy for his style of business. He tells me that his AAHHAA moment was right when he read my words in the "Marketing Systems" section of his program stating: "If you do not have a strong local presence on the Internet for your pawnshop, to more than half of the prospective customers in your area you simply do not exist."

It's true. Because of smart phones and other electronic gadgetry Internet searches for local business has far eclipsed yellow page inquiries. And it does not matter if you are one of the few who still let your fingers do the walking, what does matter is how and where your prospective customers find you. But let me make sure you fully understand something.

This does not make yellow page advertising any less important for your business.

Understood? I hope so. But a strong Internet presence along with a well-built website, local search optimization, strong positioning in Google places, highly effective keyword placement, localized pay per click campaigns, and a wide variety of other marketing tricks that can be accomplished online is marketing money well spent in your pawnshop.

This holds true for every market area nearly anywhere in the world. So last fall my client had what I will call an "interesting" meeting with his local yellow page rep. The crestfallen rep could not talk my client into maintaining his monthly yellow page investment at its current level. My client cut his categories, his ad sizes, and his total investment by nearly 2/3rds from the previous year.

His YP rep was really steamed and even threatened him in a back door way by stating "You know that if you make these cuts all of your competition will get better placement of their ads and priority for their message in the upcoming 2012 book." Well La-De-Da. Whoever said that a yellow page rep knows anything about small business and the art of selling advertising?

No one in their right mind anyway. So my client's Internet marketing campaign is going just great and is totally being paid for with his savings from the Yellow Pages, and then, last month the new telephone book hit the households in his market area. Not only did his competition get better placement but they even increased the size of their display ads in the book.

Did my client panic? Did he question his sanity? Did he curse the words I wrote in his program? Not at all. He laughed, and he'll be laughing all the way to the bank. But wait, it gets better. He immediately put together a new marketing campaign and promotion for his pawnshops. An aggressive one with a very good bonus available for his customers.

How do these customers claim their bonus? Simple. His customers claim their bonus by bringing in the yellow page ads of his competitors. People are ripping out the pawnbroker pages of their new Yellow Pages in order to claim their bonus. And he's highlighting this campaign in print, on the radio, and also in local cable TV spots. Each featuring a ripping sound or picture or both.

The campaign has only been running for two weeks and his three pawnshops have already collected nearly 200 yellow page pages. His customers love it. His competitors don't - and neither does his yellow page rep. But this type of promotion isn't new for his area. He saw it many years ago from a local pizzeria that had the exact same type of promotion.

Who would've thought that pawnshops and pizza would have something in common? That is the brilliance of his campaign. He saw what someone else did successfully and then adapted the idea to his own business. He learned from pizza and is turning it into pawnshop customers. I'm mighty proud!

PS There is a lot to learn from what I successfully did in my pawn shops in the 14 sections of the Pawn Shop Advisor(tm) coaching program. You won't even need to adapt the ideas for your store. Just swipe them and deploy them. Only you and I will know what exactly you're doing and where the ideas came from.